Somewhere Only We Know
by Zeraphie
Summary: Uncle Barry's dead. He's dead, and everyone stares at me. They wait for me to do something and in return I let my boot graze asphalt, recover traction that doesn't belong to me and-and run away. Run away until all I see is forever and a day.
1. Chapter 1

_Note: Written for YJ_anon_meme on LJ; post is close to exactly like it. 'Cause I'd feel like I'd be cheating if I beta'd it. C': _

**I. **

Everything has a certain smell or a certain taste. Sometimes our garage would smell like scaly fish, and sometimes whenever Aunt Iris washed the dishes they still smelled had the residue from leftovers last night. Megan was still trying to understand the Earth need for hygiene, so the kitchen at Mount Justice always smelled like some sort of food—burnt or not.

Blood just smelled like blood.

It tasted like rusted iron, and it took ages to leave your mouth. There are about five quarts of blood in the human body. But I'm pretty sure I'd just witnessed four of them ooze from his body, at first deceitful because it was also the same shade of his uniform. He laid there in a sea of blood, every molecule no longer buzzing and whiter than the platform of Zoom's base. I think I hugged him. I body was limp, bones shattered into a billion pieces and I saw his heart. I saw it the size of my fist, saw it squeezed and pinched like a water balloon in a chokehold before it burst.

I still hugged him. I blood seeped between my lips into my mouth after I buried my face into the crook of his neck, and it blinded my eyes. From head-to-toe I was soaked in his blood. You could hardly tell the difference now. It was caked in my hair, smeared in my face, and blotched across the yellow of my uniform and it was all I could smell.

Tears didn't leave my face. I didn't sob, didn't talk—didn't think. All I did was fall to my knees and hug his body. Then it hit me. If I had gotten there just a second faster…if I was fast enough—

_Barry's blood. Barry's blood. Uncle Barry's blood. Oh…oh my god._

Before I knew it, searing pain trampled both of us. The burn of his body against mine boiled my skin and I held on tighter. It smelled like lightning, soot, and burned against my skin. I could feel epidermis scraping off my flesh, scalding and deafening to the ears, but…nothing.

I screamed Uncle Barry. I screamed for Flash; the guy who was everywhere _every time_, who used to hug me. The one years ago that Aunt Iris told me she was marrying and…and I rolled with it. He was kinda boring, kinda stiff. But he was my hero. All he did was pat me on the head, smile, and asked this eleven-year-old kid to catch all his slip-ups if he was ever a horrible husband to his new wife. That was what he did: he patted me on the head whether I did something right, did something wrong, and took care of it for me.

Then the real thought kicks in. Uncle Barry is dead.

My forearms had second degree burns. I knew they'd heal, so that wasn't the problem. My arms were light without a body and under the tips of my fingers are drenched with left over red liquid.

_Uncle Barry is dead and now his body's missing._

I can't remember what happened first. I think Robin and Aqualad found me; moved my body for me. They dragged me to a corner, mumbling something so miniscule, so incoherent that I didn't care anymore. At first they started talking, tried hard to get the details out of me. Then, they tried to get a conversation going; about food—comfort food, or anything they can find. After that everyone fell silent.

Robin wouldn't let go of my hand. Aqualad watched me like a hawk, Artemis studied me. Megan was the only one who tried to stir up a conversation every five minutes, but no one answered. Not now.

An hour later, the founding members of the league came. Superboy stood parallel to his father, expression grim and I almost laughed at how he demanded what they were going to do to me. I didn't. I hadn't even blinked in the past hour.

After everyone calmed Superboy down, Superman noticed I was holding the ripped Flash cowl between my fingers. Batman doesn't extract it.

They took one look at me, drenched in blood, and no one demanded I be interrogated that night.

-x-

Mom tried to pry the cowl from my fingers—told me that it was the only thing left over; that there was no body. It was what they were going to put in the coffin. I snapped at her. You have no right to touch the cowl, I'd yelled. You weren't here, you were _never_ there and you always _hated_him because I liked him better.

Dad only stared at me. He was the silent type, and every time you looked at him he had the same expression. My mother slapped me. A few hours before the wedding, Aunt Iris had driven by, her makeup running. She had a suitcase in the back of her car. We stuffed it with some clothes, raided the fridge, and drove to the cemetery in silence. She asked me one question:

"How long do you want to stay over?"

Forever, I didn't say. Forever, and ever—until Uncle Barry comes back, smile on his face and pats me on the head like he used to. Then I want to stay at the Allen Household forever and a day. Instead, I said, "I don't know."

She knows what I mean, though. Aunt Iris pulled me into a hug the moment we got out of the car. My heart tingled with the serendipitous feeling in my chest, bubbling and glowing from her touch; from the two people who understood who I really was. When she patted me on the head, it just didn't feel the same.

The funeral was long, boring, and dull.

Nothing like Uncle Barry. Everyone who knew him says their regards, saving Aunt Iris for last, who smiled gently and got into the story of how they met, how he proposed, and what happened at the wedding. Before she went up to the stage, Jay filed down and stood parallel to me. We stared at each other for a moment.

A small, sad smile, tugged on his lips, and he held three fingers in the air. Three generations of the Flash.

I did the same. Three fingers in the air—then two. One generation gone. The one who was gone before his time.

Jay nodded softly, but he wasn't like anyone else who came to the funeral; the ones who came up to 'Barry Allen's nephew' and sent me their condolences. He sidestepped anyone moving through the crowd, and so fast he was almost a blur, pulled me to his chest. My nose was crushed in his chest, strong and hard that I would have broken if he didn't have a gut, and I hugged him back.

He was the Flash. So for twenty whole minutes, I pretended he was the Flash that was my uncle.

When Aunt Iris finished her story about how Uncle Barry stepped on her feet during the wedding reception, a smile on her face, everyone laughed. They laughed wholesomely, some people muttering, "Typical Barry", and then they stop. They realized it was too soon, and that Uncle Barry wasn't there. They couldn't rag on him for being silly.

That only made me hug Jay tighter. I hugged him, eyes closed and pretending I'm hugging Uncle Barry, and hope for forever and a day.

-x-

Jay was a retired speedster, and no one took him seriously as the Flash. But he gave me this look. It was a look I'd see him giving Uncle Barry once in a while—proud, but stern. Through that look he expected something from me. I still had that cowl, tucked safely in my souvenir shelf, and it hasn't moved. One time I ran up to Mount Justice, and found someone had moved around my entire room—my shelf on another wall. Megan had done it to cheer me up. Feng shui. Superboy helped.

I screamed at the both of them and they only stood there, stunned, before I realized ten minutes later what I was doing. My uncle is dead, I'd yelled. That was the only thing that could have gotten me through, and everyone—even the villains expect me to step up because I'm the next generation. I'm scared, and I need organization. I need to know where my things are, I need to know that when I look over my shoulder, I can be assured that it's still there. That it's not _missing._How can you be so stupid?

Artemis pinned me to a wall and threatened to shove a sedative arrow down my throat. I looked over my shoulder and saw Megan crying.

I never make Megan cry.

After that, I high-tailed it. Went solo for three weeks. There were only two options when it came to costumes: my Kid Flash costume, which was still caked and stained in blood, or the Flash costume. The one that he kept in differing rings and always had it with him.

I went with the blood.

Just like Jay, everyone gave me looks. For every cat I saved, the little girl stared at me oddly, ready to say something before her mother cut her off and dragged her away. For every burning building I escorted victims out of, firefighters would give me that look—that expectant, confused look that they thought I wouldn't be able to decipher when they gave their thank you's. Then the villains gave me looks. Captain Cold, Captain Boomerang, Mirror Master—they looked at me each time I foiled their plans.

It hit me. I foiled their plans. Without Uncle Barry. _Without the Flash_.

The villains in Central City weren't exactly as maniacal as the villains in Gotham. Once I spent an entire afternoon arguing with Robin who had it worse: Batman or the Flash. Zoom or Joker?

Zoom killed my uncle. I think we know who won.

Still, they pitied me. It had been what left a sour taste in my mouth every time I managed to foil their plans. They pitied me because Flash wasn't around—because I lost his side-punch to my sidekick.

_And they expected me to step up as the Flash. _

"You're what," Captain Boomerang drawled, "Eighteen?" _Sixteen._"Stop lying to yourself. You're not the Flash. He would have foiled our plans three seconds sooner."

It was typical banter on the battlefield. I smirked at him, loose and hollow and eyes narrowed, and said, "What makes you think I'm not the Fla—" Then I froze. Because I wasn't the Flash. I never expected to _be_ the Flash, and I never expected to be the one carrying on the legend. It was a fool's dream, to expect that Uncle Barry would live on forever-and-ever-and-ever. The mortality rate of a typical man in the US was 77. I just…I just didn't expect people to expect things from _me._

I ran. Superman or Superboy—I didn't care, whoever was there—picked up the slack for me. They'd appeared out of nowhere, kicked his butt, and the next day Captain Boomerang was on the news and declared under arrest.

Wearing that costume made me feel dirty. Even after getting it cleaned—getting it dry-cleaned, shined, and have each coat of Barry's blood wringed out, I still felt dirty. Putting on that costume, I could still smell his blood, taste it on my tongue and feel it moving in my mouth. I could feel the burns on my arms again, and it made me scared. Extremely scared.

I was Kid Flash. That's how I saw myself. But to everyone else, that apparently wasn't enough.

Batman took me off Young Justice's roster for six days. I wasn't called for any missions.

Six. Six days, and through those six days I hadn't gone to school. I think he specified six days deliberately—one day less than a full week, and one day for every single person who was 'passing through' and decided to drop by to give me their condolences. I hadn't gone to school. Everyone in Central City was still grieving the loss of their scarlet speedster, and once Aunt Iris explained to the school about the coincidental death of my uncle, they stopped snapping. Those six days kept us in a small system: I woke up and sat on the bed for an hour. I'd mow the lawn, do the dishes, and picked up all of the chores Uncle Barry would normally do.

Being a reporter, Aunt Iris already worked on a different clock than Uncle Barry had. They were always at the house at different times and rarely ever saw each other. She left food on the dining table that was always a little bit too much, and when she got home, I'd already be asleep, half the food left so she didn't have t cook. I'd pretend to be asleep around three in the morning when she came into the room, eyes never leaving my form as she stood at the doorframe, just checking up on me.

It wasn't like how Flash would come in every two seconds and check—not like how any time I'd get injured as Kid Flash , and although it healed about five minutes later no matter how horrible the accident, how Flash would still check up on me. He and Aunt Iris both, if their schedule allowed, and they'd kiss me on my cheeks and pat me on the head, awake or not.

I think she knew I was awake. I'm pretty sure of it, actually.

Still, Aunt Iris would only stand there, hopeful glint in her eyes. The one that I can't help but hate because _everyone_gave me that look.

The first day I was relieved from duties as Kid Flash, it was Superboy who came to look after me. Genomes were able to educate him up to his seventeenth year—as much as a junior in high school—so he didn't go to school. He picked up on the slack Kid Flash was supposed to pick up for the deceased Flash, and never said anything about it.

A duvet covered me like a human burrito, and he stared at me from the window, expression both blank and unreadable. He wanted to say something—say something badly, but didn't know how to form words. Supey was just like that though. He spoke with actions better than his own mouth.

I made it easy for him, opening the only lock on the window, hugged him, and for the first time I had to joke in my head how _I_was supposed to be getting sympathy points. Not the other way around.

Superboy hugged me back—hard, once his encyclopedic brain pinpointed what I was doing and the meaning behind it. He was stiff, harsh, and brutally hugged me until my lungs whined for air. I never complained.

Megan came the second day. I wasn't sure what to think about it, considering the last time I saw her I'd made her cry. All I did was apologize.

She cried too. _Harder_. I hugged her, just like I did Superboy, but it was as different as it was the same. Megan was soft, dainty, and delicate. She was attuned to her emotions and wore her heart on her sleeve because she wasn't quite sure how else to react. Death was a foreign concept.

So when I hugged her, I wasn't quite sure who it was for.

Kaldur was next.

It was a Thursday, and rather than confronting me specifically, he'd gone into the kitchen on one of the rare days Aunt Iris was home, and made me dinner. Bad, icky dinner that tasted too much like sushi without wasabi, but he smiled, thinking he had a breakthrough.

He spent the entire time talking Aunt Iris up, telling all the stories I'd done for Young Justice and then some. When it finally came time for him to leave, the mood had only lightened a little. Kaldur gave me one look, a specific look—_the_look, and when he said goodbye, I pretended not to hear him.

Artemis on Friday.

She bitch slapped me. Her hand struck my face so quickly that she earned a speedster's respect, and threatened to assassinate me if I didn't get my act together. After her declaration, she softened. Artemis looked at me, demeanor unreadable as Superboy's but emotional as Megan's, and hugged me. She clung tightly, called me a bastard, then exited the house without so much a goodbye.

Then it was Rob.

Robin, who had been watching me carefully from the bushes. Robin, who gave me a blank stare, wasn't afraid to speak his mind like in Artemis's manner. Robin, who made fun of me if I had any stupid slip-ups.

The same one who stood parallel to me when I answered the front door to the West-Allen household, decked out in his shades, but said no word. He only stared, hand curled into a fist ready to knock at the door before I'd intercepted him.

Robin opened his mouth to speak, like he had this entire speech planned out as his chest broadened. I pattern of breathing skipped a beat, and suddenly his mouth closed. Nothing was said. Aunt Iris wasn't due to be home for six more hours, so I invited him in and we watched tv in silence.

The first time he spoke was an hour later when Batman called him through his omm..-link to report to Mount Justice. He seemed hesitant, even though we'd been sitting in a dead silence for what felt like eternity, then nodded.

"You don't have to be like him, you know." I voice snapped me out of my thoughts as he pulled out a red remote designed just like his R-Cycle.

I stared at him.

Robin continued. "You don't have to be what everyone expects you to be. Be who you expect _yourself _to be."

The hum of his R-Cycle could be heard in the West-Allen backyard. He made no gesture to move, instead standing parallel to me and awaiting an answer. When I didn't give him one, he punched me in the shoulder, awkwardly and playfully like we were meeting up for the first time at Mount Justice since the last mission.

After that, he left. No laughs, no jokes—but no dread. He did what he did best: made things disappear.

Roy was the last one. I woke up the next morning after Robin left, finding him at the kitchen counter staring in the direction I'd come from. He pushed the food my way, expression unreadable under Red Arrow's guise and watched as I ate it little-by-little. I couldn't tell if it was going to be as silent and polite as Robin's visit, or hazardous and abusive like Artemis's. Because it was Roy of all people, I wasn't surprised if it would go either way.

He left the room when I was on the last mouthful of scrambled eggs. I sat, watching the hallway he disappeared into. Ten minutes later after waiting too long, Roy reappeared with a bag in his hand.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Ready for what?" I asked back.

"To get over yourself," he said like it was the easiest thing in the world. Before I had the chance to rebuttal, he yanked me by the arm and dragged me out front. Roy hoisted me in the air like a sack of potatoes before sticking me at the end of his bike.

I readily fended for myself, but he kept a firm claw in my shirt. I may have been faster, but Roy was bigger. After all, the team and I weren't the only ones who'd received training from Black Canary. "Let me go."

He shoved my bag of things in front of him and let the ignition burn.

"If I let go," Roy said simply, pushing his foot on the kickstand, "your skull is going to shatter into a million pieces and hit a mailbox. Sit. It's a long drive."

My mouth opened again to demand exactly where we were going, but it closed again under the roar of the engine. The wind spliced past my hair as we zoomed through the neighborhood, my hands digging into the stiffness of Roy's armor. Everything moved like a blur—combining, separating, meshing together until all you could see was the road upfront. Everything moved by fast.

For any normal person, it was such a ridiculous velocity that a bug flying by would go through someone's skull. For the Fastest Boy Alive, it was just ridiculously, agonizingly, and pointlessly slow.

I'd fallen asleep about twenty minutes into the ride. Roy wasn't one who cared for conversation, and as secure as it made me felt—being able to hear my own voice and know that I wasn't dead, I didn't want to hear it. He jerked me awake at our destination forty-five minutes later. It'd felt like forty-five _years_.

"Wake up," he said. It wasn't loud, but it wasn't soft. Red Arrow must have decided a long time ago that even with Uncle Barry gone I didn't get the duty of moping.

I did what I was told, too tired to snap at him. I didn't care anymore. I would have traded all the food in the world, all of my _speed_just to be back with my uncle. Too bad I was too smart to actually begin starving myself. Roy had parked us at an intersection on the highway, near the woods where it was littered with dirt, trash, and dead animals. I bow pierced my back and we trudged forward through marsh and grass until all it was doing is scraping against my legs and making them itchy.

We stopped at a cave. It wasn't inconspicuous, but because it's so deep into the woods I doubt anyone ever noticed. Roy still had the duffel bag strapped on his shoulder. Before he trudged into the cave, he pulled a Twinkie from a compartment and handed it to me.

"Eat."

I wasn't too low on fuel. When I didn't have to run across Central City and save some old lady's purse, my metabolism didn't rush through the energy as fast. I could still feel the lastof the eggs in the pit of my stomach, but instead of saying something, I took it from his hand and stuffed it in my mouth. Either way Roy wouldn't have left that spot until I finished it. He tended to be a stubborn ass that way.

It took longer than usual to swallow it down my throat. It felt wrong—too big, like trying to fit an elephant into a sippy cup or a dinosaur in a straw. It just didn't happen. It traveled down my esophagus, but as it hit my stomach it was just like a tiny pebble scaling down the Grand Canyon.

Then we walked forward. Red Arrow didn't bother pushing me forward like a hostage. I didn't have anywhere else to go—not now. What was the point in being able to run if you didn't know where you were going?

What I didn't realize as we entered the cave was that it wasn't a typical cage. Roy hadn't taken me out of the West-Allen household to beat me into submission; to yell at me, demand I get my act together. Roy was the one person who I suspected to tell me to get over myself; suck it up and take up the mantle. He wasn't passive. He was aggressive—demanding. Knew exactly what he wanted, skipped the technicalities and always went for it.

He…was the only one whom I suspected would have told me to pick up the mantle and become the Flash.

_"Recognized: B06 – Red Arrow."_

"What?" I whispered, and suddenly felt every single one of my molecules tingle against their will. What didn't occur to me was the fact the League had zeta tubes scattered all over the nation—all to get to the Hall of Justice, all to get to the _Watchtower_.

And to Mount Justice.

My molecules jumped all over the place—I—I didn' t like it. The burn returned from the first time, and I could feel the falter in my breath, and the scalding stains of his blood. My fingers dug into Red Arrow's bicep—but that didn't help. It was fucking _red_ like blood; _red_ like the fucking uniform, and _red_like all of it. Red like the Flash Legacy.

_"Recognized: B03 – Kid Flash"_"

"Wally!"

I wanted to scream and yell. I was ready to kick Roy—demand he take me back home because I was too scared to sprint across the nation. I wasn't ready. He didn't understand this.

Instead of doing anything, Miss Martian's arms were already around my neck, squeezing my neck as Roy roughly pushed me through the entrance until I was on the platform. I…I wanted to _kill him._

Megan's scent was different from the stench of blood that wreaked the West-Allen Household. She didn't permeate with despair—or depression, or—or death. Suddenly she pulled away, and the look across her face was just too bright. "What are you doing here?"

I opened my mouth and nothing came out. Red Arrow answered for me. "He's here for your next mission."

"And if I refuse?" I whirled around—super speed or not, I didn't care. The fact remained that I was _incredibly_pissed off at him. "You think just because you pull me out of bed—force me on this mission; that I'm just going to go along with it?"

Red Arrow punched me. He punched me so hard that the next five minutes were spent waiting for my nose to heal. He only looked at me, expression grim and leery before taking one step back toward the portal. "Yeah."

Then he left. Batman spared no time hesitating, instead getting on with the mission. I…I didn't want to run back—not all the way back home-_did I even have one of those anymore?_—and everyone was staring at me. Kaldur was probably debating in his head how this was working out, Robin always forced himself to look me in the eye even though he didn't want to, and Superboy and Miss M looked lost. They weren't used to this.

I snapped out of my thoughts when a hand tangled through my own. Artemis. Megan took hold of the other.

"You don't have to go on the mission if you don't want to." Robin looked to me, expression grim to the extent of his mentor's. Kaldur easily agreed.

"You've gotta have time to get over the death of your uncle." Artemis squeezed my hand tightly, lips struggling an inch up, and she nudged my arm lightly. "Don't stress yourself out."

"It is not a team without you." Kaldur nodded firmly, eyes leering my way and waiting for a reaction. I thought back to when he was in my kitchen—when he spoke a quiet conversation with Aunt Iris, but _that_look wasn't there. "We will wait for you always, Kid Flash."

Kid Flash. No one's called me that since my break. I swallowed the lump in my throat, hands tightening around the girls' with nervous disarray, and skimmed the ground with my eyes. I'd heard of their last mission. Kaldur told our-_their_last assignment to Aunt Iris, reiterating the details. It was a simulation. A simple, simple simulation if they ever carried out a mission and found themselves face-to-face with the Joker.

Don't let his mind games get to you, Batman had apparently said to them. Get the hostage if there was one, alert the league and-_run._

They failed. Had it been a real mission one of them would have died and the hostage would have been dead within the first two minutes. They weren't, Kaldur had said simply to Aunt Iris, _fast enough._

Being fast was my job. Being quick on my feet, checking our surroundings, and making sure on a subjective level that if the villain was fast—that I was faster. I'd, I reasoned in my head, become Kid Flash for a reason. Not only because it was the coolest job in the world, or the fact that the one person who I grew up thinking as my father figure would be with me all the time, but because I really loved it.

Just like how Uncle Barry loved being the Flash.

"Okay," I said softly. I met the eyes of Batman and wasn't sure what I was seeing. Did he expect _it_? Did he expect what everyone else seemed to expect out of me? Or did he not expect anything from me—nothing at all, to begin with? "I'll be Kid Flash."

Somehow—having someone expect me to do nothing after the death hurt more than the end of Flash himself.

-x-

Batman got a word from an inside source that drugdrealers had gotten a hold—or at least, the chemical makeup of the Joker gas and planned to mix it with lethal heroine before leaking into Gotham's water plant. He needed someone who could infiltrate the warehouse on Gotham's harbor and leave no tracks. He wanted to _study_the fluid; see if he could create an antidote because the chemical makeup was enough to kill someone. It was, of course, to be a covert mission. We were supposed to be sneaky.

Robin was too young. Dick was good at espionage and undercover missions, but this was too dangerous. Aqualad and Superboy were too bulky; too easily spottable. Artemis was meant for long-range and Gotham was too dangerous for Miss Martian to simply camouflage herself.

Ultimately, Batman needed a _speedster_on this mission.

I don't think he understood that I wasn't as fast as Uncle Barry. The last time we tested how fast I could run—nearly two months ago when Aunt Iris decided we should have a barbecue and we ended up playing through the sprinklers in the backyard of their apartment complex—I could only come as close to the speed of sound. I still couldn't figure out why whenever I vibrated through something, it _exploded_, and my boots thud whenever I hit the ground. There had been extra weight installed to the soles of my boots—initially as a counterbalance, so that my center of gravity allowed me to land mostly on my feet and would help strengthen my leg muscles while I ran—but now it just felt like a nuisance.

The costume felt small. It felt thick, hard and heavy, digging into my skin and becoming uncomfortable. Wearing the suit—calling myself Kid Flash—felt wrong. Each time I turned my head, nostrils grazing my sleeve or hand at the side of my face, I could smell the blood. The metallic, rusted iron stain that felt as if ti would never go away.

_"Are you ready?" _Robin stood next to me, voice down to a whisper as we stood on the top of Warehouse 45.

Never. _"Always."_ I pulled the goggles over my face, feeling the binding scrape against my scowl as I mounted like a track runner. The friction would carry me off the building—almost make me _float_, and all I had to do was whiz through the building, steal a sample that would go unnoticed, and the mission would be over. I could go home, find Aunt Iris's dinner on the counter, and then go to bed.

"On my mark, Kid," Kaldur murmured through our mental link. I hated it. "Go."

Sprint. Left foot, then right foot. I suddenly felt as slow as Roy's bike, air roaring in my ears as Robin quickly hacked Warehouse 42's lights—shut them off like a technical failure just from his perch on 45, and ran faster. Goggles offered nightvision.

I looked around twenty times, counting the seconds in my head that Rob would be able to keep his interception, but I couldn't find it. The fucking _syringes_, like all the diagrams showed, or the fucking tank of Joker Gas—none of it. _Seventy-five, seventy-four, seventy-three…_

All the doubt kept pounding in my head. I could hear Captain Boomerang—I could hear Batman, and the rest of the founding members of the Justice League: _Flash would have been there three seconds sooner. Flash would be able to vibrate through the building undetected rather than make it explode. __Flash__ would have figured out by now where the fucking syringe was. If __you__, Wally, had been the one being brutally tortured by Zoom, the Flash would have found you, before it was too la—_

_"Come __on__, Wally!" _"

Three. Two. One.

The mission failed.

Lights flickered back on as a chaotic symphony, electricity crackling violently with each passing light. I looked around, caught redhanded in the middle of their operations with an empty syringe in my hand and surrounded by thugs three times my size.

Aqualad's voice screamed in my head. _"Kid Flash, get out of there!"_

Not only had I waited too long before finding the fucking evidence, _I'd found an empty container_.

I couldn't move.

"Well, well, well," one of the larger guys said with a sickening smirk across his face. I fist was larger than my head and mass put both Superboy and Aqualad to shame. I faltered, stepping back and found myself knock over their table of needles. The large man plucked me from the ground, yellow-and-brown teeth hazing in my eyes. "Look at what we've got here, boys."

"Oh? Ya didn't know, punk?" Another man shorter than even me stepped forward, Brooklyn accent thick in his throat. He smirked, arrogance narrowing to my form as he pretended to blow on his manicure. "Business hours are closed."

"I was just leaving," I said as calmly as possible. No one had said a word. The link between Miss Martian and the rest of us had gone blank, and I tried three times to get in contact with them. The grip on my hand _hurt_, nails digging through the skin and penetrating dermis.

"What's this?" I caught my breath. The shorter man jabbed at the lightning bolt dead center on my chest. "I've seen this before."

"Me too!" gasped one of the other, taller thugs. "Ey, at Central City or something?"

"Could it be?" No. Nononono—The smaller man grinned. "Could this be the _Flash's sidekick_?"

I didn't say anything. He still hit a sore spot.

"No, that ain't right, is it?" That grin coiled into a vehement smirk, and he jabbed a finger rudely into my chest. "From what I hear…you work alone these days, don't you—Flash Boy?"

Where were my team mates? I looked around—anywhere but their face. _Anywhere._ And…they were taunting me. Horribly. I thought back to what Uncle Barry once taught me—the lesson after learning more about Robin, the first sidekick _ever_, and how a speedster was able to throw out any chance for a mind reader to take control of my head. It hadn't worked—the training, at least, considering there was no one to practice it on.

And that just got me thinking about all of the other lessons I never got to complete with Flash as my mentor.

I couldn't go past the speed of light.

I couldn't vibrate without exploding things.

I couldn't enter relative time and figure out how to get out of it without Jay or Barry helping me.

I couldn't—enter the speed force by myself _because_I couldn't go past the speed of light.

I can't go Mach 10.

I can't be Uncle Barry.

"The Flash…your father died, didn't h—"

An arrow shot him square in the face. It wasn't a trick arrow—not one of Roy's arrows loaded with a boxing glove, or a substance that would contain them, but an actual arrow that pierced the man's jaw. He dropped me, and as he roared with pain, I rolled away, scurrying to my feet and felt like all the tissues in my lungs suddenly disappeared.

My team was there. To fucking _bail me out_.

Superboy's eyes were suddenly against mine—he took one look at me with his bright blue orbs, and it was like he _lost_it. I pupils dilated and he went to the first man that held me hostage. He roared, battle cry monstrous and deep as he rammed his fist into the man's bleeding jaw, and no one apparently felt the need to calm him down.

Artemis certainly didn't. Her hands were stiff on her crossbow, and every single one of the guns were out in the blink of an eye. Miss Martian was next, levitating three of the thugs away from her face with a confident smile. She flashed me one sympathetic look, cheerful, reassuring demeanor and returned to being giggly.

Because she _could_. _Megan_ could still be herself on the battlefield. _Megan_ could smile without feeling hollow inside. _Megan_ didn't need—didn't _care_to have guidance. Megan…Megan still had her uncle.

A hand was on my shoulder and a handkerchief was shoved in my face before I realized my vision had blurred. Two blobby figures sat in front of me. Blinking only made things worse; allowing the fat tears to streak down my face and drip on the floor.

"It's okay," Robin said sympathetically. Fucking Robin. "I'd…wipe your face, but these gloves are kinda booby trapped. Are you hurt?"

I shook my head. Slow, for once, and it still felt too fast. Aqualad had a hand on my shoulder.

"Clearly we misjudged," Aqualad murmured softly. "It is okay if you're still getting over the death of the Flash. You are not ready to be back on the battlefield. Not this soon."

Misjudged. They didn't think I was ready. They didn't see me fit-_oh god._

"KF, _wait_!"

I ran. Pivoting my foot and allowing it to slap the ground, I ran out of the building, goggles forgotten and dust getting into my eye. It stung-_badly_—and the faster I ran, the harder it became to breathe. I'd fucked up the mission. I screwed it up—because I wasn't fast enough, because I was so busy trying to seek _approval_, because I didn't get it—as—

My arms were burning, I realized. I choked on dirt and debris that stirred while I ran, and the prickling sensation returned to my body. The husky scent of blood filled my nose, mixing with the salt of tears and as metallic as the throbbing in my chest. The skin on my knees felt as though it was about to burn off and—

I didn't know how to stop.

The searing heat scraped my skin, peeling away at it until it felt like my arms had burnt away into nothingness. The static heated up in my eyes between each blink-_faster_than each blink, and running fast just didn't seem fast enough. My body keeled away to the atmosphere's opposing forces, every molecule spliced by air as I moved.

I passed Kansas. I passed Ohio, Arizona—Hawaii, Japan, China-_went through Happy Harbor and still kept running_. The strain on my body felt strenuous—horribly sickening, and fresh tears seemed to go through my skin. Anyone who saw me would have noticed this yellow blur that was—was going _too_fast. I wouldn't stop. Couldn't.

My feet pounded the ground so hard that it felt with each impact that my ankles would give way and explode from the pressure I forced upon it. The seams on my uniform—however many lacking there felt—began to unravel, scraping way in the wind, and—

[Kid] Flash Fact: Only 93% of the time I could actually stop abruptly without having to create some resistance.

[Kid] Flash Fact: 7 wasn't a lucky number for me. It was how many teeth were first knocked out the first time I took a jog, raw with the energy of chemistry burning through my veins before I collided with a brick wall. It was how many times I went up to Megan, told her she was beautiful and then realized she wasn't interested in me. It was the number of times I'd crashed into the mountain before I learned how to control vibrating, and I still had a falling-out with that one.

[Kid] Flash Fact: I…these days I was having a hard time believing I was a Kid anymore.

[Kid] Flash Fact: As much as it scares me that people give me that look and expect me to step up…it scares me more that I just might.

My body was beginning to deconstruct.

Every molecule in my body was begging for release—begging to explode and rip away from the one object that contained them: _me_. And they still couldn't. No matter how badly I mentally begged myself to stop running, there was still that blade—terse and sharp that cut every thought. It was like my molecules and every fiber of my being was begging that I reach culmination—that I proved myself.

[Kid] Flash Fact: …there was always a small part of me—vitally small, that wished for once, I could be faster than Uncle Barry.

The earth ripped between my feet, flesh tearing apart as the molecules nibbled at my face, and by now I had been blinded by everything that wasn't behind me. My destination wasn't clear, and I could hear the buzzing in my omm..-link, voices that told me one thing: _Slow down._

Maybe I yelled at them.

Maybe I told them, I didn't need to slow down; I didn't want to slow down, and they had nothing to do with it. Because I was slow in the first place I wasn't able to save Uncle Barry and every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was his blood. I saw his blood, could taste it in my mouth, and it felt as though the reason why I was always so slow was because I was running through it. I'd be moving through Uncle Barry's blood, going slow as molasses, and each time I inch faster—I end up going slower.

Lightning singed my ears. I breathed in the smoke and engulfed the crackles that beamed high in the air and ripped through the vortex of red and golden yellow. I remembered once when Uncle Barry tried to tell me about the speed force. He told me it was amazing; and it was vital. The speed force was the power source for all speedsters, and it'd chosen him—dorky, plain Uncle Barry to be its wielder.

Not me. Never me.

Did I want it?

Maybe…if I never had super speed, then I'd never have to worry about it. Uncle Barry could have been alive—right here and right now—if I never met him. If I never made that stupid experiment.

Without even realizing it I began to choke on my own sob. Tears drowned the rest of me, face burning from salt and I—I stopped. I stood still, dead still with tears running down my face and realized before today, I hadn't cried over Uncle Barry.

The adrenaline finally caught up with me, and I didn't notice where I'd landed. Whether it was Tibet or Keystone or Central City—I didn't care.

But I passed out. The last thing I saw, really, was the dark gleaming crimson of some other superhero's outfit. It could have been anyone. Captain Marvel, Superman—but I passed out just secretly hoping that it was Uncle Barry returning from the grave.

**-x-**

**Author's Note: **

Well. I dunno what reaction will be. But I hope you like it? :D; Updates on Friday.


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

I woke up strapped to a heart monitor with an IV jabbed up my arm. Looking around, my eyes still felt crusty with tears and raw from salt. Someone had found me, apparently, and put me in a large room that looked like the infirmary back on Mount Justice. My uniform sat right next to me, shredded and tattered which left me—in a hospital gown.

The room was empty.

Other than the mechanical equipment that you expected to find in a hospital and then some (stuff you would _only_ find in the league), it felt like a normal hospital room with no windows, no nurses, and no doctors. I wasn't restrained to the chair and being probed, apparently, and the over bed table was filled with a large plate of cookies.

One of the things both Uncle Barry and I _did_ shared was our hyper accelerated healing, and even though I felt weak from burning so much fuel, I didn't have much of an appetite, either. I yanked the IV out of my arm, knowing that I'd get crap about it from Batman later, but it was the least of my worries.

When my feet touched the ground, gravity pelted me with my stomach digging into my kidney and blood circulating like they hadn't in over twenty years. I looked around the room, taking note of all the machinery without really caring for it, and walked toward the other end. On the wall was just a door and a long glass mirror, but they wouldn't budge.

It crossed my mind, actually, that if I was awake, then someone should have come and gotten me. If I was in a hospital gown, then that meant something bad must have happened. That, I muttered to myself, or I'd finally lost it.

The door wouldn't open. I jiggled it four times between my hands, noting how much my body ached from overuse and the high-pitched humming in my head before turning back around and fetching my costume.

Who was locked outside? Or…_was I locked in_?

Suddenly the mission returned to mind and I shed all other thoughts, redressing in my Kid Flash costume at lightspeed and zipping toward the door again. Non-superpowered idiots in Gotham shouldn't have been a problem for the team. It was something nitty-gritty Robin dealt with all the time-_singlehandedly_ and having a team back him up should have made it easy cake.

Unless you were the idiot who didn't grab the right syringes, tanks, and tanks that were actually filled with something.

Idiot.

I pressed my hands to the cold glass of the wall, forehead freezing against its touch.

Suddenly I looked back up, tracing the lightning bolt that was patched onto the suit, then to me, myself. Green eyes stared straight at me. I remember once, going to the store with Uncle Barry and grabbing some groceries to make Aunt Iris a birthday dinner. We grabbed everything we could, took note of the recipe, and I accidentally put a can in someone else's basket. At first they laughed—I was only twelve. Then they gestured to Uncle Barry, who was trying to figure out the difference between all-purpose flour and barley flour, and told me to meet up with my father. I looked at her funny; told her he was my uncle. She patted my head, looking directly in my eyes and chuckled.

Still, the family resemblance is there, she insisted. Isn't it?

The tears were collecting in my eyes again. Suddenly the door whooshed open, someone humming the unmistakable tune of Lady Gaga, and I felt my hands drop from the wall.

Flash only looked at me, goofy smile across his face before he looked back to the over bed table. Suddenly he frowned and tsk'd slightly. "So…I take it we _don't_ share the same appetite, mini-me?"

It was him. It had to be him.

I must have stared at Flash for a really long time, just—just looking over him. My heart pounded harshly against my chest but the rest of me remained dead still in shock. Flash looked back, eyes behind his optic lenses widening and confused (how did he manage to _do_ that?), then put a hand on my shoulder when I didn't say anything. It tingled. The good tingling, though. Not…not what I've been feeling. His touch felt as though it was lifting every negative thought—every doubt I had in myself.

I could be Kid Flash. I could still be his sidekick, he could still be the Flash—I didn't have to outrun him. Aunt Iris could be happy. I could listen to every stupid, every corny joke he said, rag on him, and all he would do is laugh.

I could have my uncle back.

"Um, mini-me-_Wally_—" Flash smiled fervently and held something up that looked like an iced mocha. They were my favorite. "You gave us quite a scare, you know. Supes was bent out of shape trying to catch up on you, Bats has been monitoring you. Your vitals are okay and stuff—and your wounds have healed. Hey, was it that one time that Robin and you went to fend off against the alligator? You know, the radioactive one? God, that was so _cool_—"

Flash zipped across the room, then returned with the batch of cookies in his hand. I only stared at him, mouth having gone dry. What did I say? What was I supposed to _do_? He handed me a cookie and I slowly wrapped it between my fingers.

"—Hmm, or maybe it was that one time where Speedy and I dressed up as prostitutes—you know, Dick's got a lithe form? Man, he made an awesome girl—"

I needed to say something. I couldn't just stand there looking stupid. Stupidity and I had been going hand-in-hand ever since the death. The…the _supposed_ death. Throat tightening, I watched as Flash stuffed four cookies in his mouth (and I had to laugh, because Uncle Barry always got onto my case for eating so much), and tugged on his hand. I felt like a little kid again—the ten-year-old boy who got to meet his hero for the first time because his Aunt Iris let him visit Central City, and got a smile back.

Flash stopped his conversation with a cheerful chirp and after I blinked, I could feel the hard tear running down my face. I hugged him.

I hugged him so tightly that I promised myself never to let go. I didn't even know what I was saying anymore-_don't you ever run away again or you're grounded, mister; don't you dare use those boots and stop by in Japan; if you think you're so fast you can run to Timbuktu, then I'll kick your ass—_

"I missed you," I said instead, voice tiny in my throat. It hurt to talk. Burying my head into his chest, Flash stood there, and another story came to head. Once I tried hugging Superman when he saved my pet turtle from the sewers—but Superman wasn't the Flash. He was hard and he was a jerk and he—he didn't act like a father. "Uncle Barry, I—I missed you s-so m-much…"

Tears exploded from my face like the stupid Niagra, and I felt like an idiot with snot dribbling down my nose, b-but I couldn't help it.

"Uncle Barry, I-I've tried so hard…coping…you, gone…o-oh, god…" None of my thoughts made sense. I hugged him tighter—probably so tight that he couldn't breathe anymore, but the beauty was—I didn't care. If Uncle Barry ever died again I was grounding him until he was a hundred-and-two. "E-Every night, I just—I c-couldn't cope with it, o-oh my god…I-I kept…I kept smelling your blood, a-and…I-I couldn't be Kid Flash—I f-felt too…I felt lost, and I couldn't remember any of the rules you taught me and…"

"Wait, wait, wait…mini-me…_Wally_-" Without much reaction time, Uncle Barry backed away, his lenses wilted with surprise, mouth agape, and he stared at me with stun. We must have stood like that for ages, no one blinking. I-I had to tell myself to stop crying; to choke on my sniffles and wipe the snot on my glove. Slowly, he raised his hand, fingers tucking under his cowl and—and pulled it off.

Red hair. Green eyes. An undoubted array of freckles I _always_ hated having blinded me and the saddest look spread across his demeanor. O-Oh, God…

He only looked at me, expression strained. "I'm not Uncle Barry."

N-No. No, no, no-_nonononono_-

"Wally, _wait!_"

I ran. Out the room and through the hallway, I had no clue where the hell I was going, but I knew that so long as I was away from that room, I could actually _breathe_. Running down the hall, dry tears taking the impact of adrenaline against my face, I couldn't believe what I just saw. Every time I blinked…e-every time I closed my eyes, all I saw was _him_ with his green eyes, his red hair—_me_ with my green eyes, my red hair—in that fucking uniform. It wasn't mine—it was sinned with blood and there was only one person who should ever be given the honor of wearing it.

The one who was dead.

Everything smelled like metal. The odor was faint with insecurities, sweat, and a hard day's work, and the more I tried to breathe the less oxygen actually got to my head. Blinking made my head ache, breathing made my lungs choke and running—I didn't want to stop running until my legs gave out and left me footless.

Needed to contact the team. Needed to contact the league—I halted.

My feet hit the ground and I felt the ungraceful bend of my ankle from not skidding to a proper, momentumless stop and ended up in a corridor. I'd pass at least four other people I couldn't identify, and slowly I began a trek. _He_ couldn't find me. Hopefully.

My stomach twisted in a chokehold, ready to puke the lack of sustenance I hadn't eaten since this morning when Roy—fucking _Roy_-forced me on his bike and forced me on the stupid mission. My throat tickled, mind dizzy with horrid thoughts. The next room I entered looked like a cafeteria and—

Black Canary. Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman—

_He_ hadn't just become the Flash, he…he had taken Uncle Barry's place in the league.

No. No, this wasn't possible—I-I wasn't good enough, _he_ shouldn't have been good enough and—and I was attracting everyone's attention. A loud screech resonated through the room, some leaguers clutching their ears, then an unmistakable voice announced itself on speakers.

_"We have a security breach. Attention: we have a security breach. If anyone finds Kid Flash, please return him to the medical bay __**immediately**__." _

Oh shit.

All eyes immediately plastered to my form. My body trembled, head still whirring with all the thoughts I'd rather not have, and with a swivel I sprinted out of the room at top speed. This time instead of other people ignoring me, they were _after_ me. I looked over my shoulder, gasp escaping my lips as Black Canary and Green Arrow and Manhunter and everyone else were on my freaking trail.

Needed to run. Needed to _get out_ get out, and I swirved up the many flight of stairs with my heart pounding against my chest. I didn't want to be here. I would have given anything to forget seeing _his_ his face in Uncle Barry's suit—anything. Maybe…

Maybe to the point of Uncle Barry staying dead. Just so I didn't end up like _him_.

As the thought crossed my mind, I felt the tickle at my throat again, tears fresh against my face. I wanted him back. I wanted Uncle Barry back so badly that I'd go up to God and _ask_ to kill me instead. Let Uncle Barry live and let me die so everyone would be happy. Stupid thought…right?

I've already told myself how stupid it was six hundred times.

I dodged the arrow that was launched at my foot, hearing a hiss that sounded a little bit like Black Canary, then ran higher. The higher I ran—the faster they ran, they couldn't keep up with me. Suddenly my feet were lifted off the ground with a hard yank, and I dangled high in midair. No. Nonono, I needed to run, I-I needed to get out of here…

A red blur zipped right by me, _his_ flurry of red hair and green eyes gleaming with concern.

I looked to my captor, noticing that I'd been put in a green sphere, and felt my chest ache. "Uncle John?"

John Stewart; one of the two Green Lanterns that I grew up with. A small smile quirked across his lips, somewhat cheerful and also bitter. "Forgot how much I missed that costume, Wally."

He wasn't talking to me. He was talking to the _other_ me, who laughed with rawness to his voice. He looked to me, small smile twisting across his lips, but it was a struggle. "We should talk, mini-me."

Uncle John dropped me to the ground from the bubble gently. My knees touched the ground with a thud, fingers twisting into soft metal. I…I felt like puking.

So I did. All over Flash's good boots.

**-x-**

"So, uh…my name's Wally. What's yours?"

I stared at my lap, sitting in a chair at the end of what was apparently the founding members' conference room. My stomach felt empty; chest even emptier and every time I breathed, a hollow cold would brush against the back of my throat and caused the nausea to stir again. Superman was staring at me. Batman looked at me up and down, Uncle John hadn't kept his eyes off me since we got to the room, almost looking affectionate as he stared me in the face. Wonder Woman looked more sly—more gentle and less of the Amazon-y thing. I hadn't even seen Martian Manhunter, but maybe that was a good thing. If I saw Manhunter I would probably start asking questions about Megan. Most that normally wouldn't leave my mouth. And—

Flash zipped to my side, pulling the cowl down yet again and hunched his shoulders like he was an adorable little kid. He pitched his voice. "My name's Wally, too! I like iced mochas and—"

"You're really annoying," I snapped. For half a second I wondered if it was really a good idea to talk like that to _the Flash_ that way, but all my life I'd idolized the Flash-_the right one_-and he…_I_ wasn't it. Suddenly the anger coiled in my stomach, creating a stiff knot as I stood up and glared at him angrily. _He_ was a good four inches taller than me. "You're annoying, you're unfit, and your head is always in the fucking clouds thinking about _girls_."

_He_ stared at me in surprise, eyes widening like stupid golden retriever. I could see it, even, as if his tail was drooping when a frown contorted across his face. "Aw, that's not very nice."

Hawkgirl (at least I assumed it was her) chuckled softly. "Your own _self_ thinks you're annoying, Wally. The irony."

I tossed a glare her way. Somehow she reminded me a little bit of Artemis. Cunning, irritating, and too many secrets to keep track of. I stared for a moment, eyes checking her from top to bottom before pressing back in my seat. The anger in my stomach still hurt—and I felt like puking again. Looking down to Flash's feet, I found him wiggling his toes. _He_ flashed a goofy smile.

"I wasn't _that_ bad as a kid. Kinda dashing, if I do say so myself." His smile widened and I watched him zip around me as a red blur, cowl _still_ down and green eyes flashing with good nature. "Yup, I was a cute kid."

I didn't want to hear that while he looked at me, in _that_ costume. Instead I stood to my feet and glared at him. "Stop."

Oddly enough he obliged, standing directly in front of me with another of his smiles. Is _that_ how I look like to everyone else? Is that how everyone saw me? Some goofy dork that was never going to grow up? "Alright. Let's talk. How'd you get here?"

My jaw loosened, glare disappearing with it. I looked to my gauntlets, silent as my fingers traced against the padding. The Flash suit had none of that. Robin and Batman were packed with Kevlar, but ours were meant to be slick, frictionless, and maintain momentum. My Kid Flash suit was rugged from the padding and weight had to be added to the soles of my boots so I didn't trip every time I skidded to a halt. The Flash suit—the _actual_ one that _he_ was wearing, maintained the friction that Uncle Barry did.

"Can you erase my memory as soon as I get back?" I blurted instead of answering the question. My eyes fluttered over to Batman, who hadn't taken his eyes off me since getting into the room. Not a surprise. Part of me wondered if I'd become the Flash, if Dick ever became Batman. The thought seemed ridiculous but—so was inheriting the…the legacy, I guess.

Superman flashed me a look of surprise. He was probably a jerk in this dimension, too. "No doubt we'll have to do that but—"

"_Wha-at_? Hold up a moment, Supes." Flash zipped my way and put a hand on my shoulder I pushed it away and glared at him. He was unfazed. "Wally, you get the chance to retain _everything_ that you know from this future, and you're going to give it all up? I mean, you're _me_, and if I had the chance to go the future, I'd want to know everything. You know. What kinda girls you're gonna date, what kind of _investments_ I could make—"

Are you kidding me? "How _dare_ you? We are _not_ the same person!"

I pushed him off of me, again to my feet and feeling my chest clench with anger. I forced a finger to his chest, scowl wide and he only stared back. Superman and the rest of them looked ready to intervene.

"How _dare_ you," I continued, hand aching to just…just_slap_ him, "say we're the same person? We're _not_! You're not _fast_ enough, and you're not _strong_ enough and you're not—" I choked on my words and suddenly I realized he was staring at me nervously, surprise and fear running across his expression. I was crying again. _Damn it._ "You're not…you're not Uncle Barry."

I wanted to say that it was just a couple tears—that I was able to blink them away and say that I was just kidding. But I was bawling. Tears were coming down my face and I felt like a baby—and…and I really missed my uncle and…

I-I wanted to say I hated him. That I hated _him_ so badly for taking up the mantle that should have never been up for grabs, but I couldn't. I think I hated myself more for shelving myself and forcing everyone to see me in one light.

"You're not Uncle Barry," I said again, and I felt like I was suffocating. "I-I…_we're_ not Uncle B-Barry…c-could never live up to him, and…" _And I miss him._ I really, really, really missed him. I wasn't just some kid trying to get over the death of that third cousin twice removed. Uncle Barry had taught me how to become a _man_-how to make good decisions. He taught me how to separate chemicals, and how to steal batarangs from Robin and Batman's utility belts when they weren't looking and told me icky gross stuff like Aunt Iris was ticklish.

Suddenly a hand made it around my shoulder and pulled me in—tight and strong with his nose buried in my hair. I-It was one of Uncle Barry's hugs—and then…he…I…Wally patted me on the head. Just like Uncle Barry.

"Sorry, Kid," he said softly. He pulled away, sad smile on his face. G-God, did he _ever_ stop s-smiling? "Didn't realize you were at that part of your life."

"Wally—" We both looked to Wonder Woman, whose expression morphed sympathetically. "Shall we send him back?"

Oddly enough it was Batman who spoke up next. "Not yet."

"Not yet?" Wally and I shared looks of confusion. I wiped the snot running down my nose and ignored the way I was shaking.

Wally zipped over to his side, then returned with a bat-shaped canister. A stupid grin spread across his lips. "Bat tissue?"

I stared at it slowly, then took it out of his hands.

"Now," Wally announced, eyes darting back to Batman with a casual chirp. "What'cha mean, Bats? Sure, time travel will probably take like a day or two for you to build, but normally you're babbling about getting this done ASAP."

Bats. And…Supes. I looked to all of them, quietly blowing my nose as they stared back, and crumpled the used tissue in my hand. Wally kept a firm grasp of my shoulder. He was as well-acquainted with the league as Uncle Barry was.

"I'm giving you permission to spend time with the boy because you were going to ask anyway." Batman's expression grew grim—strict, and somehow different to the Batman back in my time. He was staring at me now. At least—I think he was staring at me. "It will take me a couple days to get an operating time machine, but—yes. Look after him and make sure he's emotionally stable."

I glared. How the fuck was I not _emotionally stable_? And…looking from the corner of my eye, I stared at Wally carefully.

He only jumped with glee. "Soo. This gets me out of monitor duty this week. Right?~"

He was joking. I could actually _tell_ he was joking while he zipped by Batman's side with a cheerful smile. My lips started to twitch.

"No. Finish up monitor duty, then spend time with the boy."

"Aw."

I laughed.

**-x-**

"Stay here. And—whoop." Wally zipped out of the room then came back with a plate of hoagies; stopping abruptly and with perfect balance. For a moment all I did was stare at him, expression blank while he grinned. Passing through the halls he hadn't bothered to put the cowl back over his face. Every hero knew him; every hero greeted him before he had the chance to greet them back, but the fact remained: he always said hi, never missed a name, and if a person so much as got two feet away he would swivel in front of them and give them a big bear hug. Which, I added in my head as he gave me a hoagie, was funny when dealing with men as big as Batman.

"Thanks," I said softly. It hurt to talk after all the yelling I did, and my head felt so light you could probably make it pop with a needle.

"Welcome." He stared at me, eyes glittering with…with something. Jay had given me the same expression at the funeral—something expectant, but also pitiful and unsure what to say. He plopped into the seat parallel to mine and watched as I nibbled on the hoagie.

Nibbled. The concept should have been beyond me—barely eating something. Free food, I'd always jibe if I was around the gang. But it was too much to soak in and he wouldn't stop staring. "Shouldn't you be on monitor duty?"

"Monitor duty's an excuse to bond with whoever's in the room." He shrugged and rested his feet over the keyboard. "'Cept, you know. When there's a giant T-Rex invading Metropolis or something."

I stared at him. "You're serious."

"Sort of." Deciding it was too casual of a position, Wally swung his legs and began to spin in his chair, this time humming something that sounded suspiciously like Kesha. I _couldn't_ end up acting like him. Not…enthusiastic, and happy—and singing girl songs in a disturbingly well-practiced falsetto. "Alright. Let's talk."

"How could you replace Uncle Barry in the league?" The question left my mouth before I had the chance to think—something that got me in a lot of trouble, but the moment it left my mouth, my brain racked with other things that had been nagging me. "Why would you? How could you take up the mantle of the Flash when—when it was _Uncle Barry's_ duty, and how can you be so casual? Don't you ever regret it? Why give up being Kid Flash when—when…" _When I'm totally not good enough to inherit the title?_

The question left a bitter taste in my mouth. Wally seemed patient, keeping that fervent smile across his face while I looked down to the hoagie.

Suddenly it didn't seem so appetizing. "Sorry."

"Nah, s'fine, mini-me." His lips were graced with a grin and he crossed his legs, eyes gently hardening. "If I was in your position, then I'd think the same thing. And I guess you kinda confirm Bats's suspicion."

I peered back. "What do you mean?"

"In this universe…" Wally's expression suddenly melted, sadder and weary. In the ghost of space he actually made me think of Uncle Barry. I shoved the thought away, squeezing the hoagie between my hands while he was swept in a silence. "In this universe, I _am_ a founding member of the JLA, mini-me."

"That's not right though," I said, and I knew I was running my mouth was running faster than my mind could process the thought. "It _can't_ be right."

"Parallel universes. Duh." He snorted, talking about the issue as if he read it in the newspaper or if he was just keeping conversation with a friend. Eyes narrowing, Wally looked to me, expression calculative before he continued again. "Bats is pretty paranoid about these things. We pretty much frisked you in the non-creepiest way possible, found your state ID and well—same year, mini-me. The thing is, in this universe when the JLA had formed, Uncle Barry has been dead for at least a year."

My chest tightened. Uncle Barry's death—I didn't like the way he was speaking of it so casually. He must have realized where this was going because he put his hands up in the air in surrender.

"Uncle Barry…his death was devastating, just like in your universe." Wally crossed his arms, smile slowly fading as he entered another state of thinking. I wonder if that was how I looked whenever I thought about Uncle Barry too. "It was hard to cope with. Incredibly hard. Central City's villains pretty much _sucked_, and as Kid Flash I wasn't taken seriously. They lost their greatest hero and at the time it seemed like the best choice of action."

"But you regret it," I said simply.

"Never," he said without missing a beat. Wally stared at me, eyes as glass before he closed them and smiled. "The circumstances given, I wish he didn't have to die for me to inherit the mantle, but being the Flash…there were big shoes to fill, Wally. I couldn't be Kid Flash forever—the same way Dick couldn't always be Robin—"

I blinked and opened my mouth to speak. He beat me to it.

"—Ooh, just make sure he doesn't go through a phase where he thinks disco is amazing." He batted his hand dismissively and continued. "Don't get me wrong, mini-me. Inheriting the title as the Flash the way Uncle Barry inherited it from Jay—it'd crossed my mind a few times over the years growing up, but the thing was, I wasn't a kid anymore. I was eighteen when he died—a kid getting ready to go into college and figure out his life, but I wanted nothing more than to fight crime and save people all my life."

That sounded more like me. Staring back at my hoagie I squeezed it until grease coated my fingers and cheese oozed onto my palms. It'd crossed my mind after Roy had left, _yeah_ that one day it may be me throwing my goggles to the ground and leaving Uncle Barry, but the thought frightened me so badly that I shoved it to the back of my mind and cherished what I had.

Roy came from a broken family and—yeah, sometimes Mom, Dad, and I don't get along, but our family wasn't broken. Then came Uncle Barry—a guy who had nothing to do with our situation, who was orphaned as a child and seemed to glue our pieces back together with his smile. I couldn't leave Uncle Barry—not unless something forced me to. And up until his death it didn't occur to me that I might not be the one who ended up leaving.

"You get it now?" Wally placed a hand over mine, eyebrows furrowed guiltily. "I mean, I get _you_, mini-me. When I was your age I was just enjoying life, and Uncle Barry was who introduced me to it. But after his death…the world needed a Flash. A speedster."

"What if I don't want to become the Flash?" I stared at him hard and felt myself shaking. "What if…I—"

"What if you make mistakes—and tarnish Uncle Barry's reputation?" Wally silenced. "…I dunno about your Uncle Barry, but mine would always say, 'Keep running, but—'"

"'Never run away,'" I finished. My eyes darted to a monitor where some hero was rescuing a kitten from a tree. Chest tightening once more, the hollowness in my chest seemed to alleviate; replaced with something better. Warmer. "he told me that after my first screw-up as Kid Flash."

"Chasing after Captain Boomerang and getting ripped by a banana peel and marbles?" I nodded. Wally laughed—maybe even giggled, but the warmth and mirth seeped through with nostalgia. He shook his head just as dismissively and took a large bite of his hoagie. "he used to make everything look so easy. Making decisions, saving people—saving the bad guy when they totally didn't deserve it."

"That was Uncle Barry though," I whispered quietly. "He thought everyone deserved a second chance and never went back on a promise."

"Sounds like your uncle and my uncle were two peas in a pod."

I would have gotten on his case for being so incredibly dorky, but somehow it felt fitting. "Was it hard?"

Wally smiled kindly. "Which part?"

"Everything."

"It came with plenty difficulties, yes," he waved his hand again. Suddenly he stopped fidgeting and squeezed my shoulder firmly. "I second-guessed myself a lot the first month and a half, mini-me. But after a while, I realized that I didn't need to. Uncle Barry taught us all of his morals, all of his achievements, and honestly he's still my hero. We're not the same as our uncle, buddy. Not even damn close."

"But…?"

"No buts," he concluded. Wally folded his arms and scrutinized me to the very last freckle. "I never ended up like Uncle Barry, mini-me. I don't think I ever will—but I _will_ use what he's taught me. He left behind a legacy."

"Do you think you're doing a good job?" That _we're_ doing a good job?

He picked up on my message without even much as batting an eyelash. Wally stared me in the eye and began to teeter the hoagie back and forth in his hand. "I think…that that's something you're gonna have to find out for yourself."

"But what if I don't want to become the Flash?" This time I stood up. Everyone had been giving me the look—Batman, Superman, _Aunt Iris and Jay and Captain Boomerang and Captain Freeze_—I hated it. "What if I don't want to be someone that everyone expects me to be?"

"You don't." A smile curtsied across his lips and he tangled his fingers together over his belly, hoagie long forgotten. "Be yourself."

_"You don't have to be what everyone expects you to be. Be who you expect _yourself_ to be."_ Just like what Robin said. My throat went dry and I stared at him. There he was—my future self (or at least, a version of my future self) and of all people despite how things had turned out, he was giving me a choice. To…to pick up the legacy Uncle Barry had left behind or to stay where I'm at. To be the hero that _was_ my hero or to…to be myself—whoever that was. When Aunt Iris and Jay gave me _that_ look, it made me feel uncomfortable, and when Batman talked to me it was as if he wasn't expecting anything at all. But the Flash-_me_ was giving me a look.

"This is like, the fourth time you've left me speechless since I met you," I mumbled.

"Really? Guess it takes one to know one. Haha, _literally_." Wally grinned and patted me on the head just like my uncle. He telling me that I had a choice was as flippant as the weather—like he was just telling a kindergartner what was two-plus-two. "C'mon. I want some ice cream."

"What about monitor duty?"

"Oh _please_, like you haven't shrugged off a Bat before." Rolling his eyes playfully, Wally pulled the cowl over his face. "By the way, I like the goggles."

"Um…" A smile curled across my lips. "Thanks."

He typed something into the computer that made me think a bit of Rob when he hacked the JLA computers nearly a year ago, then latched an arm to mine. "Hold on tight, mini-me."

**Author's Note: **

I actually forgot to mention that this would be a crossover between the DCAU/JLU!Wally and the YJ!Wally in the previous chapter. Anyway; no Warm Fuzzies today, but I hope this makes up for it. Thanks for the reviews!


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

Wally's apartment was small and meant for one person. We'd beamed to an alley about three blocks away from it before zipping across town. When I asked him about what people would think about having 'Kid Flash' hovering around Central City, he only laughed and shrugged it off saying something about his adorable cousin. I decided not to pester why he had a chest in his closet full of clothes fit for a teenager. He had a pet hamster the way I did that was fat and fluffy (I called it flat, he said it just used a lot of volumizer) and a refrigerator that was only half full.

"Gotta drop by once a week," he explained after he was done with his shower. "You sure you don't want one? You look a little crusty."

"Thanks," I said wryly.

"Just a forethought." He pulled an iced mocha from the freezer and gestured to the Kid Flash suit scattered over his dining table. "You got a place to keep that?"

"Flash ring." Holding my right ring finger, I tried smiling again and shrugged. "Trick is getting it back into the ring."

A grin graced his lips and he threw his arms in the air. "Why doesn't anyone else think that's funny?"

"Because you're corny."

"Nuh-uh. If I'm corny that makes you corny."

"Well, maybe I'm from the universe where I'm _not_ the corny one. Just," I continued, arms crossed casually, "everyone _else_ is really corny."

"Heehee. A corny Batman. That's certainly something I want to see." He gave me the same wry look I offered him before smiling and tapping his wrist. "I've got some other errands too, and then we can go get some ice cream. Sound good?"

"Spectacular."

Ten minute later after changing into clothes that were a little snug found Wally curled on the couch with a tub of ice cream on his knee and his hamster in a ball on his shoulder. How he managed to juggle that I didn't—I. Well. I grinned. I'd have to ask him later.

Wally smiled cheerfully and waved a spoon. "I look cute."

"Ego, much?"

"You look cute so thusly, _I_ look cute. Don't go backsassing me, young man, or I forbid you from videogames and chocolate ice cream for the next month!"

A laugh vibrated through my throat. "Aunt Iris uses that one on you too?"

"Well. 'Used.'" Smiling evenly, Wally held his hamster ball tight under his arm and looked to me expectantly.

I blinked. "What?"

"I look cute with a smile, too." Wally grinned and pulled me into a headlock. "And look cute in my cousin's clothes. And totally need to stop gelling my hair. And I totally look adorkable with those freckles."

"You did _not_ just call me adorkable."

"If the gel fits, mini-me." Grinning, he scampered off toward the door and pulled the door open. "I've got to run some errands first though. You mind tagging along?"

"…Sure." A nagging part of me dictated that it wouldn't be a good idea. That going along with my future self meant finding out another part of me may not have been something I was…well, to quote this universe's Batman, _emotionally stable_ for. One peek for Pandora turned the world into chaos. Going along with Wally could have been perfectly fine—or leave nothing but a bitter taste in my mouth.

Central City wasn't nearly as big as Gotham. It was at most about half the size and a more suburban city than most. Even in different universes the atmosphere apparently hadn't changed, and Wally's personality wasn't the slightest bit different as he cheerfully greeted or was greeted on the streets on our casual stroll to…somewhere. He'd say hi to folks and they would greet him back, would stop to open the door for an elderly woman and once when I turned around I'm pretty sure he'd gone up to a girl his age and had gotten her phone number.

The fact remained that even outside the guise as Flash, Wally was still well-loved and liked by everyone. We finally made it to our first destination: the Central City Police Department.

"I'd take you through the Flashmobile, mini-me, but John made me sell it last week." Wally scratched his head sheepishly and trekked up the stairs.

"It's not like we need a car," I said quietly. Following after him I avoided bumping into anyone and took in the architecture. I wasn't good as Dick at studying the situation or the architecture, but not even the buildings seemed too different. Most things seemed too eerily the same and yet…comforting. Somehow. "Unless…" My eyes widened and red fluttered across my cheeks. "O-Oh."

"Aw, I'm not some dirty perv, mini-me." Wally laughed and patted me gently on the shoulder. "I mean, if _Batman_ can have a Batmobile, then I think that I should be able to—Mary! Hi—wait, is that my labcoat?"

I ran straight into his back by accident and nearly fell over. Wally kept a firm grasp at the crook of my neck, laugh escaping his lips as this woman decked out in a police uniform held up something that looked like a pink blob.

"Indeed it is," she said curtly with an underline of amusement. In some ways it reminded me of how Uncle John and Uncle Hal would always speak to me—especially like earlier when Uncle John caught me in a green orb at the Watchtower. "It got mixed in with the red dye over night. You should be careful where you put your things."

"Really? Hm, guess I should be more careful next time." Wally tapped his chin thoughtfully and pulled the coat over his shoulders with a cheerful grin. "How do I look?"

Mary snorted. "Like yourself. Who's the little boy behind you? Your cousin?"

"Bart?" He said without missing a beat. _Bart_? Suddenly Wally turned my way, blinking before he laughed and tucked his hands in the light-pink overcoat. Despite the color, he looked older. More mature, more sophisticated and…more like Uncle Barry. It wasn't hard to figure out what occupation he'd chosen outside of life as a superhero. "Sure. Bart Allen, meet Mary McSanders, the love of my life who is totally cheating on me with her husband."

The joke took a moment to register against the light burn in my chest. Mary didn't miss a beat, and instead laughed, ruffling my hair the same way she did with my other self's. "You never change, Wally. Nice to meet you, son. Don't let him get to you."

Easier said than done. After she left, Wally introduced me to anyone that stopped us as his cousin, and the name left a gaping hole in the back of my throat. We made it through the west wing—just like my universe's CCPD Forensics Lab and he started work at what looked like his own personal office.

I shut the door behind me. "You became a forensic scientist."

"Yeah—" And suddenly he seemed to find the implications in my statement. "—I—"

"Are you any good at it?" Looking around the room, my eyes landed on the files cabinet, then the little trinkets he had ranging from teddy bears to bobble heads and little pins that usually went on someone's breast pocket. "Are…_we_ any good at it?"

"We're…_decent_ because Uncle Barry totally thought it best that we had some grapple over detective work." Much like in the Watchtower, Wally suddenly swung his legs over his desk and crossed his arms behind him. "Everyone here is nice. Was aiming to be an auto mechanic but…things didn't work out very well. Let me tell you something when fixing cars, Wally: never, _evereverever_ vibrate your hands through the shell of the car unless you plan on making it explode."

I blinked. Something like that hadn't even crossed my mind. "…I still don't know what I want to be yet."

"I keep telling you." Wally looked at me with a ridiculously laidback smile. "Be yourself. If you've got an eye as a forensic scientist then…go for it. Wally, you can be _anything_ you set your mind on. Only, you know. Not evil. Because then that'd just be weird."

At that I couldn't help the smile that instinctively curled across my lips. I sat down carefully on the seat across the desk from his and curled my fingers into the armrests. "Thank you."

He smiled back. "For what?"

"For being me. For…" My hands tightened around the rests. "For being just like my hero."

When I didn't get a response, I'd looked up to find Wally staring straight back at me, expression short and tight and a mistiness to his—

"Are you _crying_?" I gaped and felt my hands fall to my side. "You're totally crying."

"Am not," he sniffled and wiped a tear from my face. "I just got hamster fur in my eye…or something."

"_Or something_," I laughed. They'd been genuine each time he tricked me into one—so light and freeing against the pressures I'd been feeling since Uncle Barry's funeral. Laughing had always been something so innate to me—something attuned to my rawest core. After Uncle Barry's death…it felt like I _couldn't_ laugh. That I was incompetent, undeserving, and anything I did would be met with a consequence I so stupidly overlooked. "Crybaby."

"If I'm a crybaby, then _you're_ a crybaby, crybaby."

"We are so not getting into the corny discussion again." Relaxing against his chair, I smiled back and decided on another question. "Bart Allen?"

"Bart? Ah." He softly gulped and mimicked my pose, arms crossed against his chest. The look on his face softened and slowly, Wally ran a hand through his hair. "You're…going to go through a lot in your life when-_if_ you decide to become the Flash, Wally. And if you do, then something that looks bad at first may somehow turn out to be good."

"…and," I said, knowing that the conversation had shifted again from a light tone to something more important, "if I _do_ become the Flash?"

"You become the Flash, you become the hero." It sounded as though he'd repeated the words to someone thousands of times before. Maybe even to himself. Wally reached over and ruffled my hair. I wonder if I was as touchy-feely as he was. "Keep running, pal. But never run away."

I nodded slowly and this time I think I understood his point. "Can we get ice cream now?"

"Totally. Just let me finish this up and catch an iced mocha from the lounge."

Ten minutes later after he sang four Lady Gaga songs and two Kesha songs I wouldn't have recognized if it wasn't for his perfectly-practiced high-pitched falsetto, we settled for walking down the streets again. The sun began to set behind the tallest buildings and just like when we entered the CCPD, exiting meant Wally waving to just about every perfect stranger on the street. With each waking moment, I couldn't help but look at this Wally and regret what I'd said.

Wally wasn't Uncle Barry. No—so far from it that you could have been to China and the difference would still be too great. He wasn't Uncle Barry's smile, or Uncle Barry's common sense, but…he…he had Uncle Barry's sense of duty.

He had Uncle Barry's corny jokes down to pat, his personality that let people know everything would be alright, and the broadness that easily swept people in. Uncle Barry had taught him a lot—all of the right things. He'd…taught _me_ all the right things.

"I remember this place," I said softly as we stood in front of _Mr. Macadamia's Ice Cream Parlor._ Looking up at the blearing yellow and red sign, I could feel the smile spread across my face as my fingers played with the loose nooks in my pants. "He…he took me here when I was eleven. Right after the chemical spill after I was released from the hospital."

"Yelled at me for hours," he agreed. Wally grinned and we went inside. The parlor was nearly empty with only a few people in their own little corners talking about nothing in particular. "I don't think I've ever been told I was an idiot so many times in my life. Was worse because he could speed-talk."

"I wanted to be just like him," I muttered. I still wanted to be just like him. Pushing that thought away, we grabbed a booth and sifted through the menu of delectable ice cream shakes and smoothies and sundaes. "It's such a small parlor compared to the tall buildings and skyscrapers that not very many people know about it."

"No," Wally agreed. "They don't. The summer Aunt Iris let me meet her fiancé for the first time, Uncle Barry would take me here every Friday after work no matter how late it was and tell me about his latest case and mystery."

A laugh escaped my lips—low and nostalgic as I raked a hand through my hair. "Even if he got caught up with his Flash duties, we'd…be together. He never missed a Friday."

"You bet it." The left side of his lips twitched and he crossed his arms. "God…you make me feel old. You know, I was pushing twenty-eight just fine until you got here."

I smirked wryly. "I look good for twenty-eight."

"Brat."

"Conceited."

The waitress finally came by with the notepad in her hands. "What would you like to eat?"

At the same time, Wally and I raised our hands in unison. "Triple-fudge brownie sundae." We eyed each other with matching grins while she remained unfazed and said, "No nuts." Pause. "I'm allergic."

She stared between the both of us, eyebrow raised before jotting down the order. Pleasantly curtsying, she began her trek behind the counter and spared both of us an odd look. I don't know who laughed first—but someone did. The room reverberated, and with each laugh I felt my heart clench just a little bit less, joy fluttering through the pores I'd blocked off so long ago. Everything tingled; everything felt just…right.

I watched him as he kept a hand on his stomach. I…watched _me_. "Wanna have an eating contest?"

In an instant, Wally met my amusement with a smirk. "You are so on, mini-me."

[Kid] Flash Fact: Ice Cream is best eaten with a friend.

**-x-**

"That is _soooo_ unfair."

"S'not my fault you're an old geezer who doesn't know how to hold a brain freeze." I grinned and leaned against the door while he clutched his head with a low, pained moan. "The trick to stop a brain freeze is to put your thumb on the palate of your mouth."

He did it. "Lies!"

"Yeah. But I can totally call you a thumbsucker now, dude."

"More lies! Well, maybe a little." Wally snickered, crossing the threshold with his finger still under his lip and a quirky grin across his face. He leaned against the window and suddenly the expression deteriorated from his face with concern. "You feeling better?"

Tons. Tremendously. Not…_entirely._ Nodding slowly, I looked to the ground and felt the loose nooks of my smile begin to unfold. "Being here…it's easy. There's you, there's Uncle John, there's—well, you've told me more stories about Dick and a disco suit than I thought I'd ever hear, but…it's…"

"It's the same as running away?"

I nodded and looked away. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, kid." Wally pressed a hand to my shoulder and we began the path back toward his apartment. The sky was quiet—peaceful, tranquil, and filled with city lights that glowed overhead of little boys and girls walking with their parents and young couples that thought-_were sure_ that they would be together for forever and a day. "Hey, you know what else I've got to do? Patrol. You wanna patrol with me?"

My chest tightened lightly and I stopped our path. "I-I don't think…"

"Pleasepleaseplease?" He clasped his hands together and looked to me with the biggest puppy dog eyes I'd ever seen. I…should get him to teach me how to do that later. "_Pleeeaaase_?"

"I-I…sure."

"Whoo!~" Literally in a flash, Wally had pushed me in an alleyway, going from his casual t-shirt and jeans to the familiar scarlet before triggering the mechanism on my own ring and—"Oh, _cool._ You and I both have the same birthmark on our—"

"_Invasion of privacy!_" I shoved his chest and felt for my goggles before staring at him in disbelief. He just…he just did a strip-and-switch on me. _Me._ From now on I was going to take Dick and Roy's discomfort about it into consideration. _Especially_ after that.

"Hm, Shayera's right. Maybe it _does_ mean more when you're getting the comment from yourself. Or that makes me an egoist. Autosexual? Eh." Flash took two fleeting steps back and smiled at me cheerfully. "You take the west and I'll take the east, young padawan. Meet up at my apartment and—_tell_ me if you run into any trouble, alright?"

I nodded. "…_race you._"

"Oh, you are _on._"

Taking heed on the west, I darted through every dark alley, every corner, every sewage pipe, every building and every door to see if I could spot danger. If I was to compare Central City to Gotham or Metropolis, even, then Central City would have felt like some suburban countryside heaven. Getting rid of some bad guys and taking down people like Captain Cold or Mirror Master had been a simple job. Both with Uncle Barry and—now on my own; by myself.

On occasion Jay would help out and make sure Central City was a safe place, but through the three weeks I'd spent alone there was no choice but to figure out the limits of my powers. Still couldn't vibrate without making things explode. Still couldn't blank out and enter relative time for more than a subjective five minutes. Couldn't slow a bullet as fast as I could tackle its target to the ground for safety.

Can make whirlwinds.

Can trudge through snow.

Can control the heat in my body by manipulating the bounce of my molecules.

Can-_might_ be able to go pass the speed of light.

If I try hard enough. If…if I take out the last blockade I'd put up as Kid Flash nearly two months ago.

Might not want to.

The west side of the city was clear. It wasn't as bad as downtown, which of course was due east, and I'd yet to hear anything from the Flash if Weather Wizard or Trickster was suddenly pranking up the place. On the nights Uncle Barry and I would go out on patrol and find nothing, we'd go back to Mr. Macadamia's and have triple-fudge hot brownie sundaes. I never got tired of it, and it was always the same thought that crossed my mind like it was a dream: _I'm…having ice cream sundaes with the Flash. I'm shoving a cherry down the throat of my hero. I'm…I'm spending time with the coolest person in the world: my uncle._

Smile twisting across my lips I finally felt the whole, 'I'm-pushing-my-current-age' that Wally had felt. He had a good life. I doubted the guy had any fears or cared for the consequences, but wasn't that what I was about? The first instinct was to save someone, and _then_ get grilled, punched, yelled, pounded, and bruised for it by the league afterward. Just because I could process twenty-thousand thoughts a second didn't mean that I ever put it to good use. You survived on instinct and intellect. Not magic, because magic is totally stupid, but definitely intellect.

There was a scream.

I came to a perfect halt, stopping against the asphalt on the last street you could go in west Central City before you visited the outskirts, then turned my head. Shimmying a little to change my trajectory, I sprinted up the road and into a suburban area—_Happy Valley Neighborhood._ The scream had been faint, so the fact it even reached my frequency was beyond me, but the further I ran in the labyrinth of houses, the louder they could be heard.

A fire.

A large, _huge_ fire that couldn't have been there seconds ago when I'd past the neighborhood. I put my hand to my comm.-link—and remembered that I wasn't from this universe, so the Flash and I weren't even using the same communication line. I ran to the first few people I saw who were watching the house intently with horror across the street. Neighbors; they had to be.

"What happened?" I demanded—then stopped. Uncle Barry had always warned me never to stress out the victims; stressing out the victims scared them more and made it harder to talk. The oldest woman had to be a mother of her two children—and seriously, _who the heck brings a child outside in the middle of dinner to see their neighbor's house burn to a crisp?_

She looked to me with horror, fingers pressed to her lips and tears beginning to fall down her face. "I...I don't know! We were eating dinner inside and suddenly there was a scream, and we just found the house on fire!"

"Call the police and the fire department—" Because she obviously wasn't already coherent or rational enough to realize she should have doen that in the first place. "—I'll go inside and make sure everyone's okay—"

"I-I think that it's just my neighbor's son—" Oh, shit.

Before she managed to finish the sentence or assure me that she would call the police, I was already darting through the blazing building. Heat scalded my skin, embers scraping against the bare flesh that hadn't been sewn up on the Kid Flash suit and I pulled the goggles over my face. It had been another one of Uncle Barry's lessons when I was fourteen and he gave me a Flash Quiz about what to do in a situation.

_What happens if I'm not around and you discover a fire?_

If he's not around and I discover a fire, I _don't_ run to him. Contact him, yes—notify that there's a fire on _ street or _ lane, but by running to him I'm searching for him and by searching for him I'm wasting time. I saw a blob through the blaze, small and tiny and—_what happens if you see an unidentifiable object in the haze?_ Overcompensate. A blob could be a little girl's doll or _the little girl._

Using the wall as my friction I ran across it and was right. A little girl, cowering in the corner with tears in her face.

_Don't scare them if you see them. In their eyes, you're part of the fire._

"Sweetheart," I whispered, but flakes of ash had gotten lodged in my throat. I knelt beside her, counting the seconds I probably had left and pulled her into my grasp before—_Don't' let them inhale fumes_-grabbing in my boot some of the napkins Dinah had been making everyone carry around and pressing it to her face. "It's alright, sweetheart, I've got you—"

She whimpered in my grasp, head burying into the emblem on my chest and I dashed toward the nearest exit. _Seventy-one, seventy, sixty-nine_-count the seconds, Uncle Barry always said. Take note of the architecture, make sure you know the scheme of the building and guesstimate the time the building may collapse—taking in the progress of the firefighters and any nearby citizens.

"My son!" Someone yelled when I put the little girl down. I assumed it was their mother. "Where's my _son_?"

The one that was still in the building. I choked on my own breath for the moment, sparing no glance before bursting back through the building. Fire charred my boots, but I pretended not to notice, looking through every single room again. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch—there were stairs. Darting up each step I checked every room—found the little girl's room, the master bed room, game room, bathroom—then the one room that looked like it'd already been dissected by flames.

Teenage boy, right in the middle of the mess with a lighter in one hand and a can of hairspray in the other.

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?" I hollered at the top of my lungs. The building was beginning to collapse under my feet—becoming unstable, ready to disentigrate—_thirty-two, thirty-one, thirty_—and I leaped through the fire through the last of flame retardant material and grabbed the boy by his t-shirt.

The guy looked fucking _stoned_, with his dead expression and bloodshot eyes. If my knees weren't aching before and begging for collapse, they were now. The fire had scraped the free skin of my face, and the quakes resonated under our feet, becoming more unstable and ready to come down on my face.

And you know what the idiotic bastard did? He giggled.

There wasn't enough time to save both of us, and his body weight had to be a third larger than my own. Carrying him without the momentum behind it would have been as successful as getting Batman to crack a freaking smile—

_Ten, nine, eight—_

Unless…I held him close with the scent of cocaine and smoke going up my nose and blocking every sense until I was sure I was blind, deaf, and without a nose before vibrating out the wall—and hoping to _God_ that he didn't explode.

_Three. Two. One._

Mission Success.

My landing was sloppy. I created a vacuum whirlwind to propel us, but also landed on my left foot so hard you could hear a crack. The house exploded into a symphony of discord and I stumbled to a halt with a smoggy view of the policemen and the firemen that were there. I asked myself the same questions maybe forty times—Did I check every room? Did I make sure everything was okay? Did I save the boy? Did he explode?

Yes, yes, yes, and _no._

I limp-ran behind the yellow tape with my bare fingernails scraping into his thighs as he giggled again in my ear and set him with a less-than-graceful thump on the ground. His mother and father and sister must have gasped and ran toward him, but I fell to my knees, feeling both the adrenaline and pain finally catch up to me from playing the Big Hero, then the familiar clench of my esophagus that wanted to make me puke.

The good puking.

A hand was on my shoulder, ready to pull me in an embrace just like the dizzy-looking kid who stared back at me with a grin.

"Mini-me! Are you o—"

I punched the boy. I punched him so hard that I'm sure the bone in my knuckles me the bone of his jaw, and he whirred back with his hand on his cheek. Anger swelled in my chest, catching up with the realization of what I'd just done, and I yanked the goggles off my face. Too many colors—too bright, too vivid, but I didn't care. Looking to the little girl, I saw the long trail of bruises that went down the side of her face onto her neck—probably from something falling on top of her, and the blood that was on her lip.

Wally gasped. I might have too, if I wasn't trying to convince my stomach _not_ to puke all over the boy.

"What were you _thinking_?" I screeched while both his mother and father glared at me. He hadn't registered the punch—but my fist was definitely pounding from the impact. "Are you _stupid_? Because of you, you nearly _killed_ your baby sister, set _fire_ to your house, and left your fucking family homeless! ALL BECAUSE YOU WANTED A FUCKING PIECE OF CRACK. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?"

It didn't matter what anyone that night said. To me the entire world had gone quiet, with the idiot just staring at me like I was Lala from the Teletubbies. Wally had a hand on my shoulder, his parents were staring at me, and the little girl looked terrified.

Didn't care.

Didn't this boy's parents ever teach him anything? Didn't he know how totally uncool drugs were? Didn't he have an _uncle_ who taught him right from wrong? His morals? How to become a ma—

"Is this true, Joshua?" His father finally spoke.

"Is what true?" 'Joshua' said in a whirring voice. He held his hands up, eyebrow raised like _I_ was the crazy one and shrugged. "Flash-man, _chill._"

You have got to be kidding me. I curled my other hand into a fist, ready to strike him again—

"Flash, Kid Flash—" A policeman—that _girl_ from earlier, Mary McSanders, came by with a stern look and put a hand on the boy's wrist. "We'll be hauling him away for an interrogation." She looked to me, staring daggers at my soul before curtly nodding. "Good job tonight, son."

She patted me on the head, and before I knew it, I was being tackled by the little girl I had saved. Every part of my body _ached_, searing with pain as she buried her face into my stomach, and I forced myself to pull her into my arms. She kissed me on the cheek. "Thank you, Mister Flash."

"I…I." Then it hit me. Staring straight at her my mouth had gone dry. The reason why I wanted to become Kid Flash in the first place was to be just like Uncle Barry. To…be like Uncle Barry, I had to save lives. And being Kid Flash…_saving lives_, I prevented death from happening.

This little girl would have died had I not saved her.

"You're welcome," I said softly, but…had my voice always been that deep? When did I grow up from that ten-year-old boy who was practically _in love_ with the Flash? When…did I learn so much?

Before I knew it, she'd slid out of my grasp, looping her tiny hand in her mother's, and made her way toward the ambulance for a checkup.

It was another ten minutes before the fire was out completely, and Flash was talking to the policemen who arrived at the scene, along with some TV Reporter named Linda Park. He explained the situation, rolled his eyes a couple times (probably thinking to himself why I hadn't called him even though I couldn't) before coming back to me and putting an arm around my shoulders.

"Ready to go home?" He looked to me with a smile.

"Yeah," I whispered back. "I think I am."

**-x-**

As it turns out, creating a dimensional rip and sending me back home wasn't going to be as hard as I thought it'd be. The next day after sleeping on his couch, Wally and I raced each other to Gotham (which surprisingly remained in the same place) and ended up at the Wayne Manor. Alfred looked the same, the architecture was…somewhat the same, and even the Batcave looked intact.

With a transdimensional portal that looked more than a couple days old.

"You _lied_ to me," I said to Wally the moment we came face-to-face with the gargantuan device. Staring at him at shock, I then turned my sights to Batman, who was calculating some coordinate on the computer. "You lied first! You said that it would take a couple _days_ to build this, and yet you had one all along!" Slowly a smile contorted across my lips and I elbowed Wally in the arm. "He's totally a softy."

"Oh, the _softest_." Wally snickered and lowered his voice. "Once, when Wonder Woman was supposedly under all this gravel—"

"I can hear you."

"Well, poop." A pout twisted across his lips as he slowly turned his head and waved to fellow leaguers that descended down the stairs of the Batcave.

I looked around idly, then found my sights narrowing on one corner. Seeing as Batman was busy, I grabbed hold of the yellow-and-blank cape I could salvage—then hugged him. Tight, close, and so constricting I was probably cutting off his air supply. "Hi, Dick."

"Um." He was definitely struggling. I grinned against his neck. Even in a parallel universe he was tiny against my form. "Not Dick."

Er. "You sure? You totally look like Rob."

Pulling away from him for the first time, I looked against Robin's confused and awkward gaze and inspected him from top-to-bottom. He looked like Robin. Smelled like Robin. Was as _short_ as Robin, but—wasn't Dick.

"I'm right over here."

Immediately I turned around and had to keep my feet to the ground as I looked up. Dick was _definitely_ not that big at home. He wasn't that tall, didn't have that expression, that _costume_ and—right. Dick stared back at me, expression wry while I tried to process my…best friend being _this_ in black and blue and his stupid domino mask that was able to stay on without any string. He was Wally's age.

"You're not Batman," I said stupidly. It left my mouth before I had the chance to process what I was seeing.

Dick chuckled, soft and low and the other Robin joined him. It was different from the way my Robin, my Dick would laugh, but still very much the same with the usual mirth and idol playfulness. "Why would I be, twinkletoes?"

Twinkletoes. I would have protested the nickname, but with my brain finally catching up to my mouth—it…didn't seem to matter. My fingers curled into the material of the Kid Flash uniform, which suddenly felt a bit too snug, and I shook my head. "So you didn't become what people expected you to be."

He stared at me with amusement, and I let it go over my head as he put a hand on my shoulder with nostalgia running through his face. I think. Like I said, that domino mask was a little freaky. "I became who _I_ wanted to be."

"Do you ever regret it?"

A smile curtsied across his lips, mischievous and twisted like the Dick back in my universe. "Never."

Good. Smiling back, I tackled him into the biggest hug I could. After all, what chance was it that I'd actually be able to hug Dick and get smothered unlike the other way around? It'd be a good couple _years._ He hugged back, though hesitantly, and I proceeded with giving the new Robin a hug too before zipping back to the JLA. The vortex was whirring and violently humming, and all of the founding members—Batman aside—gathered like a pathway.

I may have only known them for a day, but I hugged them like they'd been with me all my life.

When it came turn for Wally, he and I stared at each other while I had one foot through the hole. He stared back, expression saddened and somehow, still so freaking cheerful, and held his arms out. I hugged him the longest, head buried in the scent of hot-fudge sundaes and hoagies and cookies and didn't let go until I was sure forever and a day had passed.

Looking back up to him behind those optic lenses, I hugged on tighter. "Goodbye, Uncle Barry. Thank you."

Wally held onto me until I was sure my lungs would collapse. "Bye, Kid. Proud of you."

No tears. I ran, but this time I wasn't running away.

**Author's Note: **

Conclusion next week! C:


	4. Chapter 4

**IV.**

_Hey…Uncle Barry?_

_I'm not really good at words. I don't think anyone in our family's good with words, which kind of sucks, but maybe that's why we try to make up with jokes. Maybe…we tell jokes because it's a lot easier, and because we're braver than everyone else—everyone who tries to stay quiet like it's suddenly a new rule that we have to follow. But we—you and I could never keep our mouths shut. You especially, because I swear to god you bought a joke book from the forties and used those as your punch lines._

_I didn't visit your grave much._

_It was going to be one of those things, I thought, where I would visit your grave every day, talk to you __**every day**__ and tell you every one of my screw ups. Aunt Iris does that. She visits your grave every day, tells you how your day's gone, and then comes back home. It's why she comes home late—why she leaves so early in the morning. I picked up all your chores._

_Did you know because you were the Fastest Man Alive, you had like seventy-billion chores? They're so annoying. But…it's okay. I like doing them. Trimming the hedges is a little weird because I totally got a splinter yesterday, but…it's alright. I'm fine with it._

_Do you remember that ice cream parlor you used to take me to? Mr. Macadamia's? I…I take my team mates there now. It's small and rundown and not many people know about it but—they like it. The owner thinks it's cool that I'm bringing friends now, since your death, and they like it. The hot-fudge ice cream sundaes don't taste the same without you. They never will._

_Hey, do you remember my first mission? When I was with you as Kid Flash?_

_I'd…it was a simple mission. Captain Boomerang had a girl hostage, and you told me to follow behind you because Captain Boomerang was tricky?_

_I…I told you that I could handle it. That you trained me well, and all I wanted to do was show off and have you praise me. But I'd screwed up. Going for the hostage head first, he had a trail of marbles and banana peels, and I slipped over them and nearly gave myself concussion. But I saved her. She was in my arms, you apprehended Captain Boomerang, and I __**saved**__ her._

_Then you yelled at me. I could have killed myself, you said. I didn't think first. I was impulsive and nearly got myself killed, and one of us started crying. I told you I was stupid—incompetent, and if I couldn't be the sidekick to the Flash and be smart, then I didn't deserve to live._

_You…you told me you were yelling at me because I was so full of life and nearly lost all of it. That you were yelling __**because**__ I was a good sidekick, and your favorite nephew, and I said that was stupid because I was your only nephew. You didn't care. You told me to stop crying, hugged me, and said that you loved me as a sidekick. That you were scared and proud._

_You said…keep running. But never run away._

"You look good." Artemis nudged me in the arm and I stared at my long shelf full of souvenirs.

"Better than you," I snorted. Then…hugged her. A small smile curtsied across my lips and I buried my face in the scent of her hair. "Thanks, Artie."

_There were times where I thought you were weird. You never made sense, you spoke too fast, and Aunt Iris banned both you and me from coffee in the morning for more than obvious reasons. You were always late for things, used to ruffle the gel out of my hair and I would yell at you for it. You were a little ditsy, and always talked about science._

"So my future self totally said you should never get into disco."

"Um…okay?"

"Just go with it, dude."

_And I wanted to be like you so badly. I wanted to make sense of what you were saying, be so ditsy that people still loved you for it, and to love science. But the thing was, I couldn't be you. I __**can't**__ be you, because it's psychologically and physically impossible._

_I can't be you._

_I can't…vibrate without making things explode, I can't keep a smile if there's suddenly a monster with four-gazillion arms, and I can't stop in the middle of running without the need to decelerate._

_So when I run, I won't be you. I'll go by every lesson you taught me; every little skill that you said, and maybe crack a joke or two that doesn't belong in my brain. I'm going to run at my own pace…and be a hero at my own pace. I'm going to be what I want to be._

"You ready to go?"

"Yeah," I said slowly. "…Bats."

He snorted, and we left through the zeta-beam tube for a new mission.

**"Recognized, 02: Batman."**

_I'm…_

**"Recognized, 04: Flash." **

_I'm going to honor your legacy the way it should be._

_PS: What the hell is with the chafing factor of this uniform? Sheesh._

**End**


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